Drinking Session
by mulletsandeggs
Summary: Thessa was just out for drinks, but how did she get thrown in jail in a strange land where police officers wear metal plates which look really uncomfortable. The phones are still rotary dial, the cars are not aerodynamically advanced and the people "bend."


That was it. The hard-bound copy of my thesis was submitted and the final question on my final exam was answered. The last few weeks were tedious and stressful. In my final year as a Biology student, field works were more frequent, coupled with the other more advanced subjects I had—molecular systematics and genetics—and other subjects my crazy professors forced down mine and my classmates' throats. Oh sweet life!

But that night was different. I get to actually drink my sorrows away and just have one crazy night with my friends. After our last final exam, we got into my classmate Josh's car and headed to our usual hang out place, The PARTYnon. The name was cliché but the drinks were really good.

PARTYnon was located by the beachfront in our city. There were about ten of us, plus two chemistry majors who were boyfriends with my classmate and like any other drinking session among Filipino college students, we were busy sharing the most embarrassing experiences we had that semester. I was the assigned "gunner" of the drinks and round after round, the alcohol finally took effect on me.

The talks also took a deeper plunge from embarrassing moments to love life problems. As usual, Boss (his real name is John Euclid), the oldest among us and one of the single persons in our group was the advice giver. Two of my guy friends were already crying out and cursing their ex-girlfriends and the bartender finally approached us.

"Excuse me, but can you please take it down a notch?" asked the bartender. "Some customers are getting irritated."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'll just ask for our bill."

The bartender nodded and I motioned Josh to get his car while Boss and the two chemistry majors assisted the two brokenhearted gents to get up. After collecting the chipped-in money and paying the bill, we headed towards Josh's car.

"Where to?" asked Josh. "Looks like these guys are wasted and pretty done for. Should I just drive you guys home?"

Mina, one of the girls other than me, pointed out that it was only 11:30. "We can have a joyride."

"Or, we can drive up to the cliff. It's only around two miles from here," I suggested. I was met with doubtful looks so I pressed on, "Plus these two romanticos could scream however they want without disturbing a single soul."

Josh scratched his head, trying to deliberate if he'll go with us. "Just promise to chip-in for the gas."

I took a peek at my wallet and found I only have three crunched up fifty bills so I urged Josh to pass by an ATM machine down the road. I withdrew three thousand pesos and handed Josh a crisp 500-peso bill. "Is this fine?"

He took it reluctantly and shoved it in his pocket, "yeah yeah," he replied.

Driving to the cliff was not an easy and quiet ride. Songs from a local band Parokya Ni Edgar was blaring up the speakers and the drunk ones were singing along. As the song ended, "Pare Ko" by Eraserheads came on (My Buddy in English). Our group became quiet and not until the chorus did Lester, one of the brokenhearted guys shouted, "Fuck you, Mich! You cheating bitch!" Laughter ensued and we sang along with the song.

As we reached the clearing on the way to cliff we were greeted with a giant Balete Tree (genus _Ficus_). The tree towered majestically over the signboard of the road to the cliff. Under the crown of the tree a cool breeze ruffled our hair, erasing any traces of the incoming summer's heat. I glanced at its trunk studying the faces the shadows and the street lamp created. I shivered unknowing of the cause. Stories of my grandparents and cousins from the mountains about this mystical tree flashed in my mind.

When we were kids, we were always told not to play around the Balete Tree because of the creatures that lived in it. Stories of Kapres (Sasquatch-like creatures), fairies, goblins, and White Ladies filled the conversations about the Balete Tree which scared almost every child in out barrio.

Josh threw a glance at the road up the cliff and stopped his car. "This is as far as I can go," he said. "This isn't a 4-wheel car. I can't hike up. The engine will die midway."

We got out of Josh's car and settled on the roadside, taking comfort of the bright light the street lamp emitted. I glanced up and saw a convenience store and called Mina to buy some drinks.

"Min, can you grab my wallet from my bag and buy some drinks from that store?"

"We're still drinking?" Mina asked.

"Yeah," I responded and with a coy smile. "We've been sober for like three months. This is all or nothing."

"Okay," she said simply and rummaged my bag. Moments later she carried the bag to me complaining that she couldn't find my wallet. "Thess, I can't find your wallet. Your bag looks like a jungle," she mumbled as she walked over to me, "why do you have your passport here?"

"I went to the bank earlier to open a joint account with my mother," I explained.

"...notebook, handkerchief, comb, earphones, forceps? Why do you have forceps in here?" Mina continued her litany of my things. "Will you buy an organizer?"

I grabbed my bag and searched for my wallet. "Here. Two bottles of rhum and a pack of ice." I returned my wallet into my sling bag and donned my bag on.

The drinking session went on throughout the night and the last thing I remembered was a blurry vision of me tugging on one of the vines of the Balete Tree and then everything went black...

* * *

My head was spinning and all I can think was the thought of me vomiting. I got up, eyes still closed, and cradled my head. "Ahh," I groaned as I felt the pounding in my head. Ugh, hangover. I opened my eyes to find myself behind bars with three strangers in the room. "Wha-?"

I glanced up and saw what I thought was a police officer or a warden. He was medium-built and was wearing metal-plated armor with what looked like drop-crotch pants or what I call "Justin Bieber pants." I looked around and he wasn't alone. Even women were wearing the same thing.

"Um, excuse me officer," I called to one of them. "Where am I?"

"In jail," the officer answered curtly.

"Why?" I asked. He didn't reply and my bag, resting on his table, caught my eye. "Yo, that's my bag over there."

The officer still didn't mind me and so I whistled. "Hey, Sipowicz!" I banged my head lightly against the bars and groaned. "Will you just please let me out?"

One of the ladies with me in the room laughed and said, "Can it, kid. They'll release you once one of them talks to you." She winked at me and added, "You just need to grab their attention."

I threw her a confused look and called the officer again. As blank as his expression was, his reaction to my pleas were as well. _Grab their attention..._

'Grab their attention?' I thought and decided that I should just do as I was told.

"I come home in the morning light my mother says when you gonna live your life right," I began Cyndi Lauper's song softly. I glanced and saw that no one noticed so I sang louder. "Oh mother dear we're not the fortunate ones...and girls they want to have fun. OH GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN!"

The cop looked at me, eyes surprised and called to shut me up. I shook my head and sang even louder, "THE PHONE RINGS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT MY FATHER YELLS WHAT YOU GONNA DO WITH YOUR LIFE. OH DADDY DEAR YOU KNOW YOU'RE STILL NUMBER ONE, BUT GIRLS THEY WANT TO HAVE FU-UN! OH GIRLS JUST WANT TO HA-"

"ENOUGH!" I heard a loud, stern voice. I stopped and looked at the middle-aged woman in front of me. She wore the same outfit as the officers but her metal plates were in black and gold-lined, plus she had what looked like an unknown-shaped brooch on her left breast.

She stared hardly at me, probably trying to scare me off to no avail. A retired father from the Air Force and two older brothers prevented me from being scared of this woman's stare. "You," the woman called out to me. "Follow me." She swiped her arm to the right and the bars just flew open. I stared in amazement and stood rooted to the ground I was standing on. I didn't move one on tiny bit and I found myself gaping.

'How did she do—Are these some advanced sensors? How-?' These where the thoughts that filled my mind.

"What are you waiting for?" she called out again. "Never seen metalbending before?"

"Metalbending?" I asked as I began to move. I went out of the cell and the blank-faced guard chucked me my sling bag. I caught it and suddenly these cuffs just circled my wrist with no one putting them on. I repeat. No one was putting them on. I flinched and winced. "What the-"

I stared dumbfounded. "What the fuck just happened?"

"Excuse me?" the guard asked. "I believe Chief Beifong asked you to follow her. Now move it." He pushed me and I walked down the hall the woman went.

As I trudged along, the people I passed by threw me weird glances. Although I wasn't looking directly at them, I felt them staring like I was some sort of alien coming from the outer space. I checked myself for possible traces of vomit and found none. I was dressed _normally_ in my denim shorts, my white statement shirt, and my ballet flats.

I continued and found myself in a metal holding cell with a possible two-way mirror. The woman motioned me to sit and again the weirdest thing happened. The cuffs just stuck to the metal table. I tried to jerk it away but it wouldn't budge.

The woman was now reading what could possibly be my records and glanced back at me. She sat opposite me and asked, "What's your name?"

"Thessa," I replied.

"Is that your full name?"

"Thessa Carmela Beatriz Gonzales Tan," I replied.

"How do you write that?" she asked me and pushed a blank paper and pen to me. The cuffs loosened and I scribbled down my name. I pushed the paper back and she scrutinized the paper as she saw what I scribbled.

"Look, we can do this all day. Now quit playing games and you better cooperate." Her tone was somehow threatening.

"I wrote my name just as you said," I said meekly. "First name, middle name and surname."

She scratched her forehead lightly and scribbled something on the paper. She pushed it back to me and a "北方林" was written on it. "That's my name," she stated. "Now write yours."

"I don't know how to write my name in Chinese," I explained. "I only know the English alphabet." She stopped talking and looked at me intently. I don't really know what was going on inside her mind. All I can think of is how the situation was getting weirder and weirder by the minute. I was aware that they're speaking English, but writing in Chinese?.

My father is of Chinese decent and my mother was of Spanish decent. But all in all, I am straight up Filipino who grew up in a very Filipino home. Our dining hall has the Last Supper painting with a giant wooden spoon and fork on the walls. Meals consisted with rice all the time.

Being part Chinese, my dad enrolled my siblings and me to one of those Mandarin classes in Elementary and High School and we were taught to read basic characters and survival signs like 'shop' or 'restaurant.' But that's just it. Writing on the other hand? That was really hard for us who grew up in Filipino and English academic instructions.

The woman slammed her hand on the table and said, "Quit playing around."

"I am not playing around."

"Fine," she said and waved her arms in defeat. "I'll move along. Bender or nonbender?"

I threw her a confused look. Bender? Like can I bend? I didn't know what she meant.

"Do you bend any elements?" she asked again.

"No?" I answered in a question. She nodded and acknowledged.

"Country of origin or ethnicity?"

"Philippines. Ethnicity? I really don't know," I answered. "But my dad's part Chinese, and my mom's part Spanish." I paused and noticed she has one of her eyebrows raised. I didn't mind it so I continued, "dad's Tagalog and my mom's Hiligaynon. They met when my mom-

She raised a hand to silence me. "Philippines?" she asked.

"Yes. Republic of the Philippines," I clarified. "Republika ng Pilipinas," I repeated again in Filipino.

"And where is that?"

"Southeast Asia," I replied. "Just don't ask me the coordinates because I know squat about that."

She stood up and grabbed my bag. She shook and emptied the contents of my bag on the table including lint, candy wrappers and used facial tissue—everything. She took each item and asked me what they were: a couple of my notebooks, my coin purse and wallet, the forceps I nicked from our stock room, my iPhone 5S, my Nokia 1202, passport, pens, pressed powder, Chapstick, handkerchief, my small medicine box, and even my spare sanitary pad. She asked me to identify all these.

She picked up the iPhone and held it up. "This is a phone?"

"Yes." Next, she opened my purse and emptied it. The different coins and 20 and 50-peso bills were on the table. "That's my money."

She glanced down at the orange and pink bills, staring intently on Sergio Osmeña's and Manuel Quezon's faces, as if trying to recognize them. She winced and glanced back at me trying to probably decipher my face. "Do you know where you were found, girl?"

"No," I answered.

"What were you doing last night?"

"I was out drinking with my friends."

"And how old are you?" she asked.

"Twenty."

She half-smiled triumphantly. "Underage drinking," she simply stated. "Are you aware of that?"

"No," I snapped, my temper was already starting to get to me, "because the drinking age is eighteen."

She nodded. "If you say so. You were found near the portal."

I stared blankly. "Portal to what?"

"To the spirit world." I snickered and observed her expression. Spirit world? What, does she have ESP or something? I waited for her to laugh, too, but her face remained passive. Surely, she must be kidding about the 'spirit world,' right?

"You- you're serious?" I asked. "You believe in that kinda stuff?"

She rose and headed towards one of the walls, completely ignoring my question. She did some motion with her hand which opened up the wall, revealing another person on the other side. "Officer Cheng, please call Tenzin and Avatar Korra. Looks like we got ourselves another shifter."

She turned to me and said, "You need some explaining to do."

* * *

Author's notes:

I know I still have an unfinished fic but I'll update that as soon as I can. The draft for this fic has been sitting on my desk for like months now and I just encoded them earlier. Basically this is an 'imagine-yourself-in-avatarverse' kind of fic and is somehow loosely based on mine and my friends' daydreams. I hope you enjoyed. Updates might be frequent because it's summer in the Philippines and I just finished college. Yey! Also, just comment your queries if you have questions about the references I put in (this was supposed to be in Tagalog-English).

And also, since Lin is one of my favorite characters expect a lot of interaction between her and Thessa. Until next time.


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